STONE Age man created a massive network of underground tunnels criss-crossing Europe from Scotland to Turkey, it has been revealed.

Stone Age man created a massive network of underground tunnels under Europe /Europics []

German archeologist Dr Heinrich Kusch has claimed there is evidence of the tunnels under hundreds of Neolithic settlements all over the continent.

In his new book on ancient superhighways - Secrets of the Underground Door to an Ancient World - Kusch claims the fact that the network of tunnels survived for more than 12,000 years shows that the original tunnel network must have been enormous.

"In Bavaria in Germany alone we have found 700 metres of these underground tunnel networks. In Styria in Austria we have found 350 metres," he said.

"Across Europe there were thousands of them - from the north in Scotland down to the Mediterranean.

"Most are not much larger than big wormholes - just 70 cm wide - just wide enough for a person to wriggle along but nothing else. They are interspersed with nooks, at some places it's larger and there is seating, or storage chambers and rooms.

"They do not all link up but taken together it is a massive underground network," he told the Austrian Times

Some experts have claimed the network was a way of protecting man from predators while others believe that some of the linked tunnels were used like motorways are today.